CREWE man Paul Ward has been handed a 12-year prison sentence for stabbing 26-year-old Eric Tomkinson to death just minutes after being called a ‘grass’.

The jury at Chester Crown Court took just over nine hours to find murder-accused Ward, 27, guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

The verdict prompted cries of disbelief from the distraught friends and family of Eric, many of them dissolving in tears.

Ward, a Traveller, was also found guilty of wounding Eric’s friends John Scragg and possessing a knife – receiving eight and four year sentences respectively. All three sentences will run concurrently.

During the trial the court heard how on the evening of January 4 Ward had been called a ‘grass’ by Eric as he passed the Nisa store on Alton Street.

The slur referred to an incident in 2008 when Ward was seriously assaulted by a man called David Hamlet, who had subsequently shared a prison cell with Eric Tomkinson.

The jury was told that minutes after the taunt, as Eric and some friends made their way to the nearby Hop Pole pub via the muddy pathway at the junction of Stewart Street and Wistaston Road, Ward re-appeared.

He was said to have shouted ‘do you have a problem with me?’ at Eric before stabbing him in the stomach with a large kitchen knife and attempting to stab his friend John in the back, narrowly missing him as he had turned away.

Eric, of Capesthorne Road, was rushed to North Staffordshire Hospital following the attack, but died the next day.

Drug user Ward, who said he carried a knife around with him for protection, claimed he had acted in self defence and had not meant to kill Eric. He said that Eric and his friends had been the aggressors, fuelled by an afternoon of drinking on Valley Park.

Following the verdict Judge Elgan Edwards, Recorder of Chester, read statements from Eric’s mum Marie and brother Kieron and said it was ‘very obvious the death has had a shattering effect on the family’.

Delivering his sentence, Judge Edwards said Ward had chosen to take a knife out with him that night and used it in the ‘most vicious way’.

He added: “As a result of that Eric Tomkinson is no longer with his family and they have to live with that and you have to live with that in addition. You are not guilty of murder, but the fact is within a very short time of stabbing Eric Tomkinson you were trying to cause serious harm to his friend. Fortunately for him, and for you, the knife was bent and therefore inflicted a minor wound upon him but your intention was to do much more.

“To take a knife like that out for whatever motive is something that can’t be condoned in a civilised society.”